Olympic spirit moves past borders of Europe
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The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) has broken the stereotype that an Olympic Games has to move to a different continent as Asian countries Singapore and China are to host the YOG consecutively.
Nanjing of China won the hosting right for the second YOG on Wednesday at the 122nd IOC session in Vancouver, beating the only other candidate city Poznan of Poland with a narrow margin 47-42.
As a conventional rule, two Olympics are usually not to be held on the same continent one after another, such as the Olympics moved from European country Greece to China in 2008.
"Now it's a fact we will have two Asian cities. It demonstrates that the Olympic spirit has moved past the borders of Europe," said Gilbert Feilli, IOC executive director for the Olympic Games.
Swiss Feilli also showed expectation for the Nanjing YOG, he said: "We expect high quality. There is very strong support from local authorities."
As Beijing held the Olympics successfully in 2008, Feilli believed the Olympics and the YOG didn't not have the same standard.
"(If compare the two Games in China), I could be short and say 'The same success'."
"We presume that we will not have the same impact at the Youth Games as we had at the Olympic Games."
"The audience and the functions are not quite the same as for the Beijing Games. We want the emphasis to be on education, sports and cultural exchange," said Zhu Shanlu, director of the Nanjing Bidding Committee.
Singapore will host the first Youth Games on August 14-26, 2010, while the first Winter Youth Olympics is scheduled for 2012 in Innsbruck, Austria.
